Casualties of Battle
by Brendan Storm
Summary: Maraverse Jimmy Grayson finds out about the kiss between his sister and his teammate Lil'Lantern.


Casualties of Battle

A Maraverse Supplemental 

By Brendan Storm

Disclaimer: DC comics, except for the ones invented for the MARAVERSE by Tammy, own the characters in this series.  I thank her for the use of her creations.  I thank DC for having characters to base her works off of.  I am merely borrowing them all.

Rated PG-13 for a few bad words.  Shakespearian insults by Shakespeare, or his 'prentaces if you believe current English Scholars.  

Continuity:  The same day after the Kiss scene of Maraverse Episode 10: The End. And the Beginning.   
  


            The only thing better than flying over the rooftops of Blüdhaven was flying over them with your dad by your side, thought Nighthawk.  The wind whipped through his partner's hair and the electronics package had a reticule targeting the next spot to shoot a line, which he didn't need but Nightwing had declaired a "good idea" just in case he was lost or hurt or…  well he tried never to think about that while flying.  

            "Hey Nightwing!" He shouted over the com system in his helmet as he released one cable, "wanna hear a new one?"

            "Sure!"  replied his father.  

            "You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe!"

            "Shakespeare! Henry IV, part 2! Let me guess where you heard that one?"

            "Alfred!" They both said laughing.  

            "What'd you do today, dad?"  They landed on the train heading south for the docks and the boy's visor went black for a few seconds.  The helmet was shorting out and he needed a new one.  He'd grown again.  

            "Got your sister into the Tower.  She's there for good now.  I think she's going to be fine."

            "She is a very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow."  

            "Measure for Measure, and she's your sister, so be nice."

            "Do I have to?"

            "I can't kill her new boyfriend, so you have to be nice to her.  Your mother said we both have to suffer."  The helmet died completely and Jimmy accidentally said something he shouldn't.

            "Aw, damn."  
            "Boy, you want me to tan your hide blindfolded?"

            "Helmet shorted.  I am blindfolded."

            "Well, watch your mouth and let's get back to the lair.  I'll call Oracle."

            "Do ya gotta tell mom?  She'll see the way I tweaked her last modifications, again.  She'll ground me again."  

            "Fine," The sounds of the northbound reached the boy's ears and he jumped left.  Nightwing hissed as the boy missed with his first hand but caught with his second and one foot.  He hopped lightly over before it was too late and they beelined for the lair.

            "Who's her new boyfriend?"

            "Don't you worry about it.  I have enough to do without having to repaint the dining room ceiling again."  

            "Peace, ye fat guts!"

            "Henry IV, part I" The older partner thumped his junior on the shoulder once. "I'm not fat."  

            "Better stop eating those cookies Alfred taught me to make then!"  

            "Foul wretched child of mine!"

            "You made that up!"

** ** **

            "She had a different boyfriend before?"  Jimmy asked as he soldered another weld into place on the circuit board.  The boy wielded the tiny tools like a neurosurgeon.  

            "Are you still on about that?  Put your tongue back in your mouth, you'll bite it off."  Dick said from under the car.  Jimmy wondered how he knew as he pulled his tongue in.  "No she hasn't had one before."

            "Except that Sam guy from grampa's office.  Or Bullock." 

            "James Thomas!" 

            "Sorry.  Just who'd be dumb enough to go out with her?  She's mean and hangs out with Grandfather.  Only one dumb enough to hang out with her is Lil'Lantern." There was a cough from under the car and Jimmy almost welded his thumb.  "You have GOT to be kidding?  Minty Green Teddybear guy?  Oh YUCK.  I'm vomiting here into my own helmet.  Eeeeew!"   The boy faked a death scene as only a twelve year old can.  "The horror, the pain.  That's sick!"  He writhed on the floor and choked.  

            "It is very weird, I'll grant you that, but if you don't watch out where you put that soldering gun young man I won't let you in here."

            "Aw, dad!"

            "I mean it.  How's the repairs coming?"

            "I'm done.  My head got bigger."  His dad began to laugh.  "Meeve me awone."

            "You had a growth spurt when that one girl, Crystal said you did a good job with the bank robbery last time, didn't you?"

            "DAD!"

            "Thought so."  Jimmy resisted the urge to weld his father's shoe to the floor.  Dick began whistling as he tuned the muscle car.  Jimmy made a face and ran to the elevator that led to his home, and his room.  But not before he made sure everything was turned off.  Upstairs, his mom was in the war room, as usual and he thudded past and slammed his door, throwing himself on his bed and buried his head under a pillow. 

            "I heard that!"  His mother's voice rang from the intercom next to his bed.

            "Sorry, mom. Dad's picking on me."

            "So you came home early, what happened?"  He could hear clicking as she worked.  His mom was the coolest.  She could multitask a global crisis, two bat people and a family heart to heart with no trouble at all.  He wanted to be like her when he grew up.  

            "Dad called it early.  Tune up the beast."

            "You were having helmet problems again."

            "You were watching?"

            "No.  You shouldn't play with my helmet designs if you want me to make them for you."  

            "But you gotta.  Superman's mom makes his outfits."

            "He's not twelve going on thirteen and kevlar's expensive."

            "Mara is dating Jordy Raynor. I wanna bash his head in."

            "Why?"

            "Cause he's a neat kid, and I kinda liked him.  Now he's evil."

            "He kissed your sister in front of all the Titans and he's evil?"

            "Oh gross!  Ew.  Yuck.  Won't grandfather get jealous?"

            "James, knock it off."  

            "Want supper, I have to bake, I'm so depressed now."  

            "That'd be lovely, thank you."

            "Fine."  The boy went dejectedly down to the kitchen and opened a cupboard.  He pulled out his cookbook, a three ring binder with a biohazard symbol he's swiped from S.T.A.R. labs last time his team had been in a beat down.  The recipes were all written in a delicate spidery scrawl that looked downright arcane.  Jimmy loved his Alfred almost more than he loved dad, almost as much as he loved flying on Friday nights with his dad and telling new jokes or insults he'd use to baffle the jerks in school.  Alfred Pennyworth's kitchen knowledge was a treasure that only he'd ever wanted to learn.  And when he felt bad there was nothing better than making an "Alfie meal." 

            Two hours later the smell of incredible food was enough to draw both his parents out of their holes and into the dining room.  Barbara sniffed the air and patted her stomach.  Dick laughed and pinched an inch of his own belly as he kissed his wife and sat down to the table.  Jimmy passed out portions of the quiche he had created and a roll each.  He then handed the bottle of white wine to his father and as he was about to sit down and start on his plate, with a sparkling glass of soda pop, the alarm on his watch went off, signaling a Young Justice muster.  His father looked at his watch and shrugged, his mom just kept eating.  

            Jimmy's food sat alone and unloved, but Nighthawk was gone.  

** ** **

            "Never Fear!  The Nighthawk is here!"  Shouted Kon-El from his seat in the Super Cycle.  Crystal waved hi shyly and there was the evil one, decked out in his green minty assed skin and perverted green uniform like his dad's.  The 15-year-old ring slinger of the current Young Justice was staring off into space smiling.  Probably thinking about doing nasty things to his psycho hose beast of a sister.  Nighthawk always wanted to baste and roast Robin on a spit.  He had mentioned it once to the green turncoat who had nodded too.  He probably wanted to baste her in something else.  Nighthawk shivered just thinking about that freak sister of his breeding.  

            "You ok?  I can cut down on the ice."  The just barely turned fifteen-year-old Crystal asked.  She was in full war mode, clear as an icicle and just an outline of a beautiful girl. 

            "Yes."  He growled through the helmet com.  "Situation?"

            "My aren't we all bat.  We had a vote, no bats anymore.  They can apply, but they have to be able to recite the lines from "Who's on First."  Kon said from his so called chair of leadership.  "It's Yack-Muck the blob guy.  He got out of holding at S.T.A.R. and since we put him there we get to stop him again."

            "What's the plan then oh great leader guy who won't grow up and let me be in charge," asked Yellow Hurricane.  Superboy thumbed his nose at her and Yellow Hurricane laughed and stretched.  Nighthawk didn't know why but when the girls did that it made his insides turn to jelly.  

            "Well, I thought we'd let Mr. Never Been Kissed there do the nasty part and we do crowd control.  Sound ok with you?"

            "And they say you couldn't be a leader."  Nighthawk quipped.

** ** **

            An hour later, in YJ headquarters at Happy Harbor, Jordy Raynor was standing at the fridge trying to get a jar of pickles open that Superboy had to have used TK on to close this tight.   He strained and there were little dark veins popping out of his forehead that would have made Nighthawk laugh if he weren't about to give the stompdown on the already exhausted green slimeball.  He flung a small steel ball at the jar.   It shattered and Jordy was covered in juice just before his ring deflected the glass that could have hurt him.  

            "Hey!  What's the big idea, you jerk!"

            "You kissed my sister!"

            "So!"

            "You're Evil."

            "What?"  Nighthawk assumed a Shivan fighting stance and growled.

            "You must be punished."  There was no mirth in the usually lighthearted boy.  There was a hint of the old Bat's Voice that clued Jordan in that he wasn't just messing around.

            "I love Robin, and I kissed her.  You back off."  With a feral howl, the younger hero attacked the pickle smelling ring bearer.  Nighthawk got in two good punches to the jaw before ring energy threw him out of the room.  He struggled and tried as hard as he could to get up, but the sticky gooey restraints Jordy used were binding him down.  

            "Kill you!"  He yelled incoherently.  At that point Yellow Hurricane appeared, the room was still spinning from the force of her entrance.

            "What happened, who's in trouble?" the blond girl shouted as she stopped in the middle of the battle.  Her yellow kid flash uniform blocked the ring for a second, and in that second Nighthawk was up and in the air, a razor 'wingarang in his hand.  Crystal and Superboy were right behind and superboy caught the angry boy just as he was about to land on Lil'Lantern.  He was struggling so hard that Kon had to use his tactile telekinesis to hold the young helmeted boy down.

            "What the Hell is the matter with you?" shouted Kon.  

            "Ask that traitor!"

            "Jordy?  What happened, why do you smell like pickles?"

            "Jockster here went ballistic because I kissed his sister."

            "Eeeewwwww!"  Kon and Crystal both said.

            "Who's his sister?" asked Yellow Hurricane, who'd never put two and two together about the two sidekicks of the Bat-Clan.  

            "You didn't know that Nighthawk and Ma…Robin were siblings?" blurted Jordy.

            "I knew they were part of that Gotham club, but his sister?"

            "Killllllll" Nighthawk struggled.

            "Damn it, Nighthawk. Knock it off," Superboy said as he tossed the kid onto the ceiling  "What's so bad about kissing, ugh, Robin that you have to try to murder your teammate and friend?" 

            "She's evil," the boy pleaded.  "She'll ruin him.  She'll go psycho and strangle him with her bra.  She'll suck out the life and chew on the dried bones.  I have to kill him before she does!"  

            "Wait.  You want to kill me before she does?"

            "Yeah," the quiet voice said.

            "Because she's evil?"

            "Uh huh."

            There was silence in the room.  

            "But she'll turn him to the dark side and we'll have to destroy them both."

            And the silence lingered.

            "Alright.  There's only one way to solve this.  You both have to abide by it and I swear this will be the last time you even discuss it at a meeting, got it?"  Superboy declared. Both boys nodded.  

** ** **

            Crystal held her head in her hands.  This was the dumbest thing in the world.  But if it solved the problem between her friends, she would do it.  She shouted go, and the two boys ran at each other in full force.  The Silly Sumo suits each one wore were so huge that they couldn't use martial arts, only the hot air of the suits and the Sumo style were allowed.  The battle was Epic.  The insults were a little over her head, but she'd only read Romeo and Juliet for class, and they were one sided for the most part, most points for sarcasm and inventiveness to Nighthawk.  Jordy wasn't one for insults.  The ending was however never in contest.  Jordy had reached his growth spurts a full two years before Nighthawk who had an old Domino mask on ironically left behind by his sister.  Jordy lay atop the younger combatant at the end of the match.  Still struggling to attack, Nighthawk spoke.

            "This doesn't end this.  You'll be sorry, you know that?  She's a freak, just like Lt. Bullock says.  She'll destroy you."

            "The rules are clear.  I won, and you lose.  But I know you mean well.  I'll be careful, ok?"

            "Grrrrr."  Jordy headbutted him.  

            "Ok?"

            "Fine, fine, I give.  But when she does mash you up into bits and spew you over the rug of the Bat Cave, don't say I didn't warn you, Minty."

            The battle was over.  But the war raged on, and Jimmy Grayson would defeat that butt munch of a sister if it was the last thing he ever did.  

            THE END


End file.
